An Unusual solution to Piracy (and to other serious issues as well)

[spaceman]

A friend of mine here in Paris is developping an intriguing concept. He wants me to test the waters for him.

It's not a solution that will prevent or stop illegal downloading. It does nothing against it. It will encourage legal downloading on the other hand.

It sounds a bit crazy on first look, but keep an open mind.
It's not based on a proprietary solution or any sophisticated technology.

It begins with the creation of a humanitarian fund. This in turn will fund all sorts of other humanitarian organisations, like fighting against poverty in thirld world, aids research, etc..
It will be put under transparent control of a neutral entity .

How will this get funded ?

By a contribution from sales of piratable products (mp3's, movies in digital formats, etc..) . If you choose to adhere to this program, your payment system will automatically send 10% of the price of every album or mp3 you sell, to this humanitarian fund. The system should be accessible to any form of payment on the net, whether paypal, visa, etc.. so that it would be usable as well by any independant artist that sells his music directly on his website with a paypal store (or equivalent), but also to other big platforms like iTunes, or amazon, etc...

Let's say your an indie musician, and you have set up your online shop on your website to sell a download of your album, for a fixed price of 10$ . If you choose to adhere to this program, your payment sytem will automatically send 10% of the price (one dollar) everytime you sell an album, to this humanitarian fund.

Now it can sound crazy to ask artists (and labels) who are already losing lots of money from piracy, to give up another 10% of their sales to a humanitarian fund.

But that is precisely the point. When somebody buys your music, not only they are supporting the artist, but now they are contributing to help alleviate poverty in the world, help medical research, disaster relief, etc.. Knowing this, many people would be much more tempted to buy your music instead of pirating it. Suddenly, the simple act of buying an mp3 becomes a much more powerful action on the world.
If a majority of artists adhere to this program, the sums collected to humanitarian programs can be really huge. Imagine 10% on every transaction of music or video sold on the net, and what those recolted sums can help.

You are giving up 10% of your gain, but you might very easily multiply your sales by a factor of 3 or more, wich more than compensate what you give.

If the public is well informed about this program, and a majority of artists adhere to this concept, it may very well swing a very large number of people from piracy to legitimate sale. Because now, when you pirate, you are are a double asshole , you're stealing from the artist, but also from a cause that can help many people in need all over the world.


Right now the program is still in concept development (nothing is really fixed in stone yet, like maybe 5% instead of 10%, etc..) , but a public announcement presenting the idea might be made in a couple of weeks.

What do you think ? Would you support a program like this ? Do you think it's too utopian ?

[Dean Roddey]

I'd fall for that, but I'm not sure enough people would to make it workable. I mean, they are already demonstrating their lack of morals to begin with. It would at least get rid of the possible 'sticking it to the man' rationalizations, well people would still use that one I'm sure, but it would lose a lot of its appeal I would think.

[rack gear]

Its possible - I choose to believe there is always hope - living in a hopeless world would really suck.

I would research the "Causes" records by Waxploitation.
Waxploitation | Causes | Causes 2

heres a couple others:
Lakeshore Causes Soundtracks on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Videos

People seem to be really stuck on themselves, no matter what percent is donated to great organizations or the efforts applied to raising awareness.

Good luck. Its a great idea.

ps: 5% is as much as I think people could spare. margins are thin, and 5% of an aggregate is a lot.

[spaceman]

Thank you for the responses.

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

I'd fall for that, but I'm not sure enough people would to make it workable. I mean, they are already demonstrating their lack of morals to begin with. ...

That's why a critical mass is important. Very few people are realy convinced by the excuses they use to justify themselves, they have just picked them up from forums, and most of the time they repeat them without even understanding it.
It's"un-cool" right now to buy music, because everybody is doing the same, emulation..
But it could become "un-cool" NOT to buy music, if a small critical mass swings it to the other side.
If this movement is joined by a lot of artists, especially ones that are respected in the media and the public, it could change many people's perceptions..and those people will change other people's perceptions, etc..

@ redvelvet : Yes, maybe 5% would be more reasonable, and would convince more artists, both small and big ones. But it still have to be a significant enough percentage to really impact the sums recolted, and generate significant money for humanitarian organizations. People have to see that, when they choose to buy music instead of pirating it, the money they generate for the causes are significant, and can make real changes in the world.

[The MPCist]

It's a cool concept but wouldn't work. People are selfish and mean. Even with the promise of some of their money going to humanitarian uses won't deter people who are already breaking the law. They're already doing illegal stuff so what does that tell you about their morals?

Just my opinion....

[rectifier]

Originally Posted by The MPCist

It's a cool concept but wouldn't work. People are selfish and mean. Even with the promise of some of their money going to humanitarian uses won't deter people who are already breaking the law. They're already doing illegal stuff so what does that tell you about their morals?

Just my opinion....

Unfortunately, 100% correct.

[The Byre]

The problem is not piracy.

The problem is that people are just not prepared to pay good money for the product being produced today.

You cannot sell one hour of music on a disc. That product is already 50 years old and is completely and utterly outdated.

Even if the music on a CD were good enough to have people want to un-trouser some money, a 50-year-old concept cannot expect to command much of a market.

In this and other threads, all sorts of problems and solutions are being touted by people of varying competence and industry authority.

Most of these 'solutions' seek to solve the 'problem' of how to sell a product that almost nobody wants any more.

The reason they continue to want to do this, is because they and many posting here continue to believe in the dream of becoming successful on the back of some tunes on a disk. However, if you wake up and smell the coffee, you will realise that making one hour of music and placing that on a disk and selling it is now a consumer activity.

The only parts of the music industry that can (and in my opinion should) survive, are those parts that have very high barriers to entry. Only that way, can the customer and the retail trade (on-line and on the High Street) be sure that the home recording crowd, the untalented and the slap-dash are not going to muddy the waters with second-rate product.

[spaceman]

Originally Posted by The MPCist

It's a cool concept but wouldn't work. People are selfish and mean. Even with the promise of some of their money going to humanitarian uses won't deter people who are already breaking the law. They're already doing illegal stuff so what does that tell you about their morals?

Just my opinion....

You're right, but look at this link that bob olhlson posted already: Dan Ariely: Why we think it's OK to cheat and steal (sometimes) Dan Ariely on our buggy moral code | Video on TED.com

Very few people pirate for real hardcore ideological reasons , most do it because... everybody else is doing it, so "it can't be that bad, can it ?", then they pick one of the various available rationalizations , so that they feel less guilty and preserve their good self-image.
Nobody wants to admit they are bad people.Downloading that mp3 is just a "tiny little bad action", no big deal... Multiply that "tiny little bad action" by millions, and here we are.

So maybe that "everybody else is doing it" can be reversed the other way. A small group's behavior changes, and a snowball effect kicks in, making it bigger. While staying in realistic expectations , of course. On 10 people pirating that mp3, you might convince 4 or 5 maybe. That's huge.

So when you pirate that song, you're taking away money from a serious humanitarian cause.
It might sound cynical, trying to make people guilty by making them feel like they have just refused to help people that are really dying from hunger, so that they satisfy their little egoistical desire to get free mp3's and movies. But so what ? People ARE really dying as we speak, because of not enough money to have medication or clean water, and that's far from our little internet preocupations ...
And yes we should shove that in people's head. And not be ashamed of it.

It's like: here's your chance to really help make a change for millions of people around the world, who live some real hardcore life-and-death problems, and you refuse it. All you had to do is buy that mp3 instead of pirating it. Nothing complicated.
You'll have to come up with some really REALLY good rationalizations this time to preserve that self-image.

And the beauty of it, is that it's not depending on technological aspects. The "dongle" is in the buying act itself. People can come up with all sorts of new piracy technology, new encrypted P2P, whatever, it doesn't matter. This so-called antipiracy protection system is psychological, and social.

On the other hand, i might be totally wrong, and people may really just prefer to let people die so that they can get their music freely. That's a horrible thought...even if true.

[Dean Roddey]

The problem is that people are just not prepared to pay good money for the product being produced today.

I just feel that this is the ultimate wrong answer, and it's inevitable in one of these threads. I think that the facts on the ground prove that this is utterly incorrect, because there wouldn't be vast numbers of tracks being downloaded every month if people hated it. And the fact that the most popular current music is the most downloaded proves that people are purposefully going to find specific stuff to download, not just randomly downloading stuff and discarding it.

So clearly they do want to produce it. The problem is that they can steal it, so they don't have to pay good money for the product.

[The Byre]

The CD is dead and there is a new kid in town and this new kid has all the barriers of entry that used to keep most of the rubbish out, that has since flooded the music market.

The problem for the labels is that the acts are not handing over the keys to the next generation of product.

What (I hear you cry!) is the next generation of product?

What is this magic product that will replace the CD?

What is this product that is future proof, and can only be copied with great difficulty?

Answer - the Blue-Ray Hi-Def concert video.

It has everything we need as an industry -

1. The home front is locked out. You need to have a big rig and loads of hi-def cameras, manned by competent camera people and multitrack recording with full back-up and sync'ed up to all cameras, with jibs and dollies etc.

2. Only those who play live can produce such a product.

3. Lip-syncing is out. You cannot replace parts in a live recording, you can only add (the PA system bleeds all signals, so trying to replace a part leads to disaster).

4. You cannot even bar-beat edit stuff, or autotune after the event. The act has to be able to actually play their instruments.

5. You need a good audience reaction to make it work, so you have to be popular already to make a concert video.

6. There are just five authoring houses in Europe that know how to author a Blue-Ray DVD concert video. And only one that can make a decent fist of it. So anything done on the cheap will have crap imaging, gaps in picture, poor menues, etc. and just be unmarketable.

7. Because of the required 10GB (or more) of data, on-line distribution is (for the time being at least) impossible. Also copying is difficult.

8. Demo rooms and similar are locked out, as you need the ability to mix in 5.1, sync to picture and encode the 5.1 and make it stereo and mono compatible, when already doing the mix.

9. The know how required to record and mix both the picture and the sound is considerable. Only specialist companies with that know how can do this. The only broadcaster who knows how to record a live concert is the BBC. All the others have to go to specialists.

10. The more the picture or sound is 'fiddled with' in post, the less successful is the final product. So the success or failure of a live concert DVD is all up to the stage presence of the act and their musicianship.

Many acts have been commissioning their hi-def concert videos themselves and even distributing them, themselves. Rammstein, Genesis, Rolling Stones, Pink and even Pavarotti all commissioned the recordings themselves and then go to the labels for distribution only.

The down-side for the market is that there just is not the huge profit for the labels, so they are less likely to market the stuff as intensively as CDs, that cost almost nothing to churn out in vast numbers.

Importantly - there is NOTHING stopping a really popular band, who have yet to hit the big time, getting enthusiastic supporters to perform all these tasks for them and making a pretty good video, though they will have to get it edited, mixed and authored properly.

That means that any band that is really good and has enough popularity can do this.

[spaceman]

Originally Posted by The Byre

The CD is dead and there is a new kid in town and this new kid has all the barriers of entry that used to keep most of the rubbish out, that has since flooded the music market.

...
Answer - the Blue-Ray Hi-Def concert video.
.

Good, people can download it from The Pirate Bay like all the rest of the Dvd's and Blurays out there.

[synthoid]

I don't know whether the OP's idea would work, but it seems to me that measures to raise public awareness of the plight of recording artists might help, and this (donation to humanitarian cause) might be a good vehicle for that.

We just did a short public service announcement (video) for the Chinese market on this topic. It basically says that when you buy music you are supporting recording artists. It also specifically rebuts the silly idea that all recording artists are rich superstars. Probably things like this will have little effect in the short term, but if there is a concerted effort to raise awareness, it seems conceivable that it will pay off in the long term.

-synthoid

[ohmsweetohm]

This is essentially already being done with the "RED" products. I don't know whether it has boosted sales for the manufacturers but I haven't seen a new rash (as it were) of RED ipods or laptops running around. It's a nice thought but if a consumer doesn't care that they are stealing from an artist to begin with, I doubt a 10% donation to some big amorphous fund will change their minds.

One thing that doesn't get mentioned much is that one reason why there's been so little remorse from the millions of people world wide stealing music is that for decades prior the scumbags collectively known as the major record companies gouged the hell out of everyone. $18 for a CD that costs $1.80 to produce and so on. Of course most artists were getting screwed by the same people and it sucks that they have to pay the price now, but in terms of the death of the "industry"....couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of aholes.

What's really needed is for musicians who really sell to abandon these losers and create a new paradigm that values both the musician and the consumer. Some have done this. There just needs to be more.

[Cameron Johnson]

it sounds interesting, but 10% can be a bit much... maybe 5?

[equallyscrewed]

Originally Posted by ohmsweetohm

This is essentially already being done with the "RED" products. I don't know whether it has boosted sales for the manufacturers but I haven't seen a new rash (as it were) of RED ipods or laptops running around. It's a nice thought but if a consumer doesn't care that they are stealing from an artist to begin with, I doubt a 10% donation to some big amorphous fund will change their minds.

Yea, it is pretty much the same as RED and last i heard that sank without a trace.

The problem with it is that people think "why dont i pirate the music and just donate a buck to the charity, or better still a charity of MY choosing?"

xcx

[spaceman]

Yes , it seems that RED hasn't made much success... However there are big differences.
RED was put on specific, somewhat expensive hardware products, that you might only buy once every couple of years, and usually only available on order (red ipods were only sold on the online Apple store for example, and for the other products, you really had to specificaly look for to find them.)

Whereis this is a permanent program, that can be supported by every available digital music file on sale on the planet. If joined by many artists/labels, it can be omnipresent and highly visible.

The problem with it is that people think "why dont i pirate the music and just donate a buck to the charity, or better still a charity of MY choosing?"

My friend has been thinking a lot about this argument from the beginning.
What percentage of people really donate to humanitarian causes ? Very few i bet. The thing is, many people don't donate simply because of... laziness. They would love to do it, but they would have to spend more time, or more mental energy to make that action..

Here's their chance to do it without having to do anything exceptionnal. They just have to buy that song or that album instead of pirating it. There are no extra steps involved.
Of course, if they want to donate more to some specific one, nothing prevents them from doing it too.

[banjoze]

Don't you think that people will steal the music even if this is done? If so, does this really help?

Originally Posted by ohmsweetohm

What's really needed is for musicians who really sell to abandon these losers and create a new paradigm that values both the musician and the consumer. Some have done this. There just needs to be more.

[spaceman]

Originally Posted by banjoze

Don't you think that people will steal the music even if this is done? If so, does this really help?

We think it might participate in reversing the process. This is not a technological solution, it won't prevent anybody from pirating if they really really want to do it. And that's the beauty of it. It doesn't matter if some geeks come with new encrypted p2p or a new PirateBay 2, or whatever. Even the new laws like ipred in Sweden, or Hadopi in France, will at most slow down the disaster for a year or two, until encrypted p2p becomes the norm, and they will be useless. I'm happy that ThePirateBay guys got condemned, but that's not enough.
This is a behavioral and sociological based solution.

As i said before, very very few people pirate for real hardcore ideological reasons , most people do it because "everybody else is doing it, so it can't be that bad, can it ?"
They just pick one of the various available rationalizations on the Net, and they feel less guilty and preserve their good self-image, because nobody likes to feel they are a bad person.
Pirating an mp3 is just a "tiny little bad action, no big deal"...

What if that "tiny little bad action", becomes a really really bad action ? How does it feel to be a real bastard ? Now when you pirate , you're also taking money from a serious humanitarian cause.

i am going to quote myself from an answer i gave in the other thread

So maybe that "everybody else is doing it" can be reversed the other way. A small group's behavior changes, and a snowball effect kicks in, making it bigger. While staying in realistic expectations , of course. On 10 people pirating that mp3, you might convince 4 or 5 maybe. That's huge.

So when you pirate that song, you're taking away money from a serious humanitarian cause.
It might sound cynical, trying to make people guilty by making them feel like they have just refused to help people that are really dying from hunger, so that they satisfy their little egoistical desire to get free mp3's and movies. But so what ? People ARE really dying as we speak, because of not enough money to have medication or clean water, and that's far from our little internet preocupations ...
And yes we should shove that in people's head. And not be ashamed of it.

It's like: here's your chance to really help make a change for millions of people around the world, who live some real hardcore life-and-death problems, and you refuse it. All you had to do is buy that mp3 instead of pirating it. Nothing complicated.
You'll have to come up with some really REALLY good rationalizations this time to preserve that self-image.

So the "dongle" here, is in the act of buying itself. And maybe this program should be carried by independant artists first, so that the message would be read in a clearer way by the public, without becoming messed up by the "majors suck" argument.


Please keep coming you opinions on this...

[Brian!]

I think the original poster's idea has some merit. Breast cancer awareness and whatever those yellow bracelets are for are two social causes that consumers have shown that they are willing to purchase merchandise in an effort to support. Let's say if you were to purchase 20 songs, the standard 10% would be given to the fund but you would get a bracelet or some shit to show off how good of a person you are. Coupons for free songs, additional merchandise, and whatever else. I could see it working.

[JoeyM]

It won't work. People listen to music and watch movies to be entertained and escape from the very things this would fund.

Attaching the worlds problems to entertainment dosen't work for more time than a telethon.

[spaceman]

Originally Posted by JoeyM

It won't work. People listen to music and watch movies to be entertained and escape from the very things this would fund.

Attaching the worlds problems to entertainment dosen't work for more time than a telethon.

Hopefully, now they can escape AND solve some of the world problems by the same token.

This is like a poker bet on human soul..

There is maybe an equal amount of greed and selfishness, and of goodness and empathy and desire to reach out and help, inside of all of us.

We just have to tip the balance slightly towards the good side. Sometimes people slide towards the wrong side cause it's more easy, more comfortable, but they really want to consider themselves good. They just need a little push and incentive..

[theGeek]

it seems a bit utopian but on the other hand I have seen a similar idea work on eBay... I've used it myself. You can offer to put an amount/percentage to fight breast cancer or something like that... you are then put on a special list where people can see that you are offering money for charity.

The items I've sold this way usually sold faster (on Buy it Now) or sold high enough over my expected price that I broke even.

So in theory it COULD work and I'd be willing to be a part of it...

[chrisso]

Originally Posted by The Byre

The CD is dead and there is a new kid in town and this new kid has all the barriers of entry that used to keep most of the rubbish out, that has since flooded the music market.

The CD isn't the product.
The music is the product, and music is being stolen (even in it's new format of mp3). Also music will never go out of fashion.

It has everything we need as an industry -
2. Only those who play live can produce such a product.

That kills it dead right there. tutt